The Adventure of Viconia Augusta DeVir
by Blue-Inked Frost
Summary: Athkatla's only consulting necromancer is given a blackmail case with a difficult client and a secret enemy. Holmes pastiche, in the manner of the case of Charles Augustus Milverton. Complete.
1. Sir AD

Summary: Athkatla's only consulting necromancer is given a blackmail case with a difficult client and a secret enemy. Holmes pastiche, in the manner of the case of Charles Augustus Milverton.

A/N: I stuck a similar character arrangement in another fic, but hopefully this story works by itself. The fic 'The Hidesman', by Anonymous, did Holmes/Baldur's Gate crossover first, with a different casting.

—

An Amnian fog hung outside our dwelling with the curious yellow colour neither quite pea-soup nor pumpkin to smother the city. I flicked through a meagre set of correspondence: my Order's pay-slip, a tome lent me by my colleague Ilvastarr on the components of the mortal soul, a street-notice for an upcoming play at the Five Flagons tavern. At my feet the bull-pup I had taken from the fall of Saradush whined; I bent forward to stroke between Toby's ears and felt the sting of the old injury that had removed me from active service.

"The shards in your shoulder this morning?" said one of my roommates.

His back was turned to me. "Gods. You play the part of a witch well."

"There's nothing more magical than the silvery gleam of a coffeepot in the morning."

Athkatla's only consulting necromancer could be said to keep irregular hours at best. All alertness when he was granted a problem that he deemed sufficient for the focus of his attention and awake at all hours, when no cases fell on the horizon he was indolent at best—and, at times, vulnerable to the cruel call of the black lotus root. Xzar turned back from the silver-plated pot with fierce energy written into the lineaments of his face that suggested the excitement of another unsolved conundrum. By his elbows was a large square of white cloth that he passed along.

"It is not mine, and yet it has the look of the Order's standard linen," I said. "It grows threadbare; on the corner the initials A.D. were crudely sewn somewhere in the early part of its life. It smells slightly of vanilla, and embedded in it are one or two short brown hairs that... It has also been chewed at one corner." I scratched the short brown fur under Toby's chin.

"I rescued it," Xzar said. "A vanilla-scented paladin who did not sew very well five-or-so years ago and yet was cautious of their property. Monty was in when he called."

"I see," I said. "And..."

"His exact words were 'May the snotty bastard get what's coming to him.' But the client is still scheduled to call again."

There was a knock at the door. Xzar's reputation had spread in the wake of one or two practical successes in problem-solving, such as the strange incident of the banshee in the night-time, the horrifying cargo of the barque the Queen Zaranda, and the adventure of the abominable Neb and his twisted brides. Weakened after long campaigns in Saradush and Amkethran, I had returned to Amn as an invalid paladin with neither kith nor kin in Athkatla. The necromancer and his associate Montaron likewise sought a living and affordable lodgings in the City of Coin, and together we had fathomed strange puzzles in the odd corners of the large, dense city.

The prospective client was a tall and bulky man with the face of an impatient terrier, with reddened cheeks above his carefully combed beard. He wore the colours of the Order even in this everyday dealing, a heavily polished breastplate above his clothing and the symbol of Helm ostentatiously around his neck. He looked with a scowl at the common area, which was certainly less orderly than ideal. My rough-and-tumble experiences in the field have made me lax in some respects, but I knew well that the coffee beans were in the polished goblin skull, Montaron's tobacco in one-half of a pair of boots of speed, and unanswered correspondence orbiting a glowing crystal ball. Above the mantlepiece the symbol of Mystra was marked out in throwing-daggers, concealing the old 'Z' of the necromancer's former, abandoned organisation. I have always felt strongly that target practice ought to be an outdoor occupation.

"I am Anomen Delryn." Our guest spoke as if the name ought to be familiar. "You are the necromancer? Then I would speak with you alone."

"Anything you say before my colleague shall be as confidential as to me," Xzar said with a languid wave of his hands. "Please take a seat; you can clear away the gibberling shinbones if you wish."

"Delryn," I interjected, for indeed it was familiar to me. "I know your name from Ajantis Ilvastarr."

"My heroism in the battles against the Hillgnasher Giants, no doubt," Delryn said, his muscles almost visibly inflating with his own consequence. He was a cleric for the Order; his apparent state of health showed him fit for the field, but Ilvastarr's words of him had not been so complimentary as he had thought. "How do you know of Ilvastarr? He is quite well thought-of in the Order."

"I work part-time in the healing wards," I said, "but we are here to talk of your problem."

Delryn's face grew set like stone. His clothes were of good quality but showed signs of repeated use, as if he was less well off than he wished to seem; I had an impression that his name was a noble one, and thus either his family had fallen on ill times or he felt himself estranged from them.

"There's at least one ghost on your shoulders," Xzar said. "A young girl. Your belt is an Athkatla mourning-colour; has it been a year or so since your sister's death?"

"You must have heard gossip." Delryn's expression set still more firmly. "My sister Moira died these eleven months ago, and I have grieved for her and continued in my life. She has nought to do with this meeting, and I would thank you not to abuse her name. They say that you have aided in desperate cases for a fee."

"A standard rate; except when the problem is sufficiently intriguing. I note, by the way, that the colour of some of the mud on your boots is that vibrant red shade of the clay of the Bridge district. I was recently digging there for traces of a murdered herbalist. I see dead people," Xzar said.

"I was visiting the noble estate of an acquaintance," Delryn said, waving it away. "In fact I am soon to be married, and my bride would prefer a match with some ceremony and witnesses to it. Therein lies the matter I bring to you: my wife-to-be is wealthy, and a vicious fiend wishes to extort coin from me prior to the wedding." Redness plumped Delryn's cheeks like a cockerel.

"You are being blackmailed," Xzar said, leaning forward.

"A vile crime," I put in. "Why not involve the guard?"

"For the subject matter is— One of your terms of employment is that you must destroy the material in its enclosing box within my presence or return it to me," Delryn said. "I will not be placed in the position of answering to a second demon in humanoid form. Helm's wrath will attend me, and I suppose you must have some standards—"

"It loses clients, and necromancy really doesn't teach you the art of extortion," Xzar said.

"Would not honesty be the best policy with your fiancee?" I suggested. "Who is she, by the way?"

"The Lady Nalia de'Arnise. Nalia," Delryn repeated. For a moment a look of softness crept across his boastful, harsh features, but then he recovered his pride. "She is the daughter of a noble and good family, and the marriage will enable her to protect her right to her own land. She is also a woman of strong and righteous principle. Even to a fault. The crime is committed against both of us, with she as unconscious victim; I commission you to retrieve the material from the cruel devil who torments me."

"I have heard it said that there are few lower than the blackmailer," Xzar said softly. "They who bleed the victim drop by drop, smiling cold as marble with a heart of golem steel. Freedom from them is never gained, until they are drained dry and the poisoned teeth find a new victim in their icy grip."

"—You are quite correct," I said. "We will aid you, Delryn."

"Very well." Delryn hastened on to give the remainder of his circumstances as if he feared that slowing would make his liver turn altogether to water. "The fiend is the notorious Viconia DeVir, that foul dark elf who—"

"My index-cards, if you please." Xzar held out a hand; he habitually kept them below the alembics, their thick leather covers stained with miscellaneous fluids. "D...Dhampir, half-offspring of a vampire or partially completed vampire, rare, usu. sparkling in sunlight; Deril, club-footed lich in the complicated case of the druid's offspring; Degardan, of the scandalous events of the Thayvian—" and here came the typical pause of reflection on the woman, or man, who had truly matched us in a game of wits. "DeVir, Viconia," Xzar said. "Dark elf of Shar; roomed in the graveyard a while; removed from it due to marriage to the noble Baron Zaragosia; attended husband's funeral there a year later."

"That succubus is accounted a noblewoman of great wealth," Delryn said. "I know not how many other victims of extortion, or indeed the fortune she inherited from her conveniently late husband. She has made me the offer of twenty thousand danters for the return of her proofs, but I confess that the most I should be able to raise would be five thousand. Less, of course, your fee. You may negotiate with her if you choose. If you cannot, then I ask you to end her evil ways."

"Case accepted," Xzar said.

—


	2. Cragmoon's Remedies

It had seemed a long shift in the wards; a young boy had been enabled to keep his leg after nigh severing the bone in a dangerous accident on a roof, but I had seen the death of a docksman brought in on a rough stretcher, a broken rope and the mangling of his chest and organs from a heavy chest of stonework supplies. Montaron's overcoat had been flung in the doorway, and inside Toby the bull-pup was not the only one who greeted me.

"The game's afoot!" Xzar said. "The fair sex, of course, being your department—"

I cannot deny a certain experience of women over several nations and at least three discrete regions. Nor, indeed, being one.

"On the case of the murdered herbalist: Montaron has discovered a lady who may have been one of the last to see her."

Inspector Aegisfeld had commissioned Xzar upon the discovery of Missus Cragmoon's body; the process of excavation had revealed only a suggestion that the murderer was a man, dark-haired, and familiar with the underworld in which his victim had operated. He had caved in her skull and left the body sinking deep into that red clay from an overturned layer in the earth.

Our route took us to the shades and shadows of the Bridge, past hawkers in ash-pits plying hot sausages of troubling composition and into the alleys that adjoined the nobler estates as the sharp division from day to night. They lived on the refuse of such places, and served the nobles by containing it. Rose Bouquet, in the dim light of an overhead lamp-post, might have been named for the scarlet crown of hair that flowed across her bare shoulders like livid fires; closer, she was a tall gaunt woman in ragged red, thin and sallow as if a victim of recent illness.

"What d' ye want? No time unless I'm paid for it." Xzar offered her a coin.

"You knew Missus Cragmoon, didn't you? Dead Missus Cragmoon. We seek the puzzle of the cause; would you tell us when you saw her last?"

Miss Bouquet requested another danter. "Third or fourth day of Flamerule," she said. "Can't rightly remember which."

The body was located on the ninth day; and today the thirteenth.

"Evening or morning, Miss Bouquet?" Xzar said.

"Were morning." Rose Bouquet crossed her arms. "Came to my crib and talked a bit. She wasn't a bad old stick."

"And talked about...?"

"How it's bloody cold for Flamerule." The lady shivered, her arms clutched around herself. "Same things your type talks about with your friends, I don't doubt."

"You have been ill lately, haven't you?" I said. "I work in the mercy hospital. If you'd like me to say a brief prayer..." I raised a hand toward her. Then she startled like a trapped cricket and jumped a step back.

"You're one of those Order types, aren't ye? Something about the eyes. Staring! Judging folk! I won't have that. No, you keep away from me. Even the likes of they look down on those like us. I'm done with this." Rose Bouquet clutched her grip on her gold. "Just you keep away when folk know you're worse than the common guards."

"Then there are many who have failed in their duties toward you, Miss Bouquet. The hospital is intended to serve all who come to its doors." I had seen women of a similar profession to her. "Missus Cragmoon, I take it, was kinder to you when you were ill."

The wary look did not fade from Rose Bouquet's eyes. "I'd eaten something I shouldn't. Bad meat or something. She gave me a nice willow tea."

"_Yellow_," Xzar said in an undertone, and I did not need that to notice that the sallow tint of Rose Bouquet's skin and eyes was not only light—and could not be the lingering effects of only food-poisoning.

"Have you continued to have trouble eating?" I said.

"I've never eaten much. I'm right as rain, I tell you. Not a thing wrong with me." She shifted a hand to her hip.

I signalled to Montaron and Xzar to move back from her. "Or pains...here?" I said, pursuing it and pointing to the liver. Something in Miss Bouquet's gaunt posture and glitter of yellowed eye was like one or two other cases I had seen.

"I don't see that's any of your business, but if ye tell me what mess to grab from the seller that's fine and I won't oblige myself to take your advice." For a few moments we spoke of symptoms as healer to patient; passings and sensations.

"Dandelion tea will soothe your liver complaint," I said, for that was the usual meaning of the yellowing of skin. "It came upon you suddenly, and Missus Cragmoon helped you to treat it."

"It wasn't her fault! Came and helped me, she did, and gave me a mix of her own that smelt like castor. Wasn't nice, that, but helped me get up again."

"And was it tansy or pennyroyal she gave you, Rose?" I said baldly, for she had described it clear enough at last.

She grew paler below the light. "Thought you holy ones were against such things. Would want to haul me off and have me prisoned for it; and if she were alive her too, though she was a good old body who never hurt anyone in her life. What if I did, _my lady_?"

My order serves life. And yet women who induce such things do not do so without reason; and that reason becomes compassion for them. "I am not here to condemn that, Rose. Did Missus Cragmoon give you the preparation in the first place?"

Officially, preparations of tansy or pennyroyal or slippery elm, those that loosen blood and destroy unformed life, are barred for the women of Amn; and when they come ill to the wards they cannot tell the full truth. In the hands of careless herbalists they can kill or harm for life when the dose is wrong in the slightest, a danger far from the wounds encountered in battles. One could imagine revenge for such an accident—or murder.

"No. She only helped me after," Rose said, shaking her head firmly. "She helped me in the morning, and then she went."

"Did she give such preparations to other women, Rose?"

"Sold mostly nara," Rose said, "healing herbs, guril, willow—and, sometimes those, if you needed it and when she was careful. Never harmed nobody."

"Black lotus?" I said; for in fact Montaron had found traces of the herb hidden in her cottage.

"Things that people want to take, think of it what ye will," Rose said. "She never harmed nobody. She was angry when I told her I'd bought from that Brassus Clem; he said it was the same as her but he got it wrong, and she helped me through it. So you see she wasn't killed for anything she sold."

"Lotus kills slowly," I said, and inwardly thanked Selune that Aegisfeld had secure custody of Missus Cragmoon's supplies. "It seems...easy, a relief." I had searched countless tomes on the numbing of pain when coming home from the wars. "But it hurts you in body and mind. I don't mean to preach, Miss Bouquet; it's only that I've seen it." I gave her another danter. "And she said nothing of her plans for the day?"

"No, indeed. By all means find the dirty dog who did her in," Rose Bouquet said, and held her head as high as a red dragon.

"I couldn't have told she'd taken pennyroyal without her being dead," Xzar mused. "A good reason for a healer's advice here. The fourth is a likely day for Miss Bouquet's statement; Missus Cragmoon's rival Brassus Clem as chief suspect for confronting him upon her trade; Monty...?"

"Heard the name," Montaron said simply. His face was more wrinkled than its norm today, his hair greyish and his walk slow as if he was an old man. Not only the shadows but disguises were his forte in disappearing and redirecting; in another life I believe he could have made a fortune on the stage, so accurate his imitations of others. Gnome, dwarf, male, female, in a few moments and with but a few supplies of cloth padding and greasepaint Montaron could fade to another identity easily as into the shadows.

"Fits the description of what we're looking for, Xzar. Small problem: he's been dead a threeday. Carriage accident. Still filling the old gossips."

"And his...family, sibling, leman or beau, business associates?" Xzar said. "Such a coincidence. I don't trust coincidences."

"His woman were supposed to be upset. Should I find out more?"

"Very much so," Xzar said. "Especially where the body is buried."

—

On our return the heavy cream-coloured envelope pinned to the wood of the door with a silver nail was addressed to Xzar; and sealed with a rich seal of black and royal purple.

_Will call upon you at twelfth hour tomorrow. Luncheon will not be required. —V. A. deV._

—


	3. Lady VADeV

_Lady V. A. DeV._

—

Those who could not afford so much as a grave in the City of Coin were piled and poured into a vast pit in the least-travelled corner of the graveyard, names chalked on the stone of a nearby white wall until it would be filled, and then the bricks were once more chipped down and the old names overlaid. Those who could not pay for even that were cremated. Patients of the mercy hospital ended here; I came for the dead.

"Looking for someone?" stonecutter Egil asked me while I traced the carven names. "Who's dead this time?"

"A few days ago," I said. "A man called Brassus Clem." My fingers passed along the engravings on the wall; and there fourth from the head was the man I sought.

"His wife came and saw him put in the ground," Egil said. "It's that fresh mound there. We've had grass already beginning to grow."

—

The sounds of a horse-drawn carriage fell fashionably late on our narrow street; a pair of healthy whinneys and the jingling of new-fashioned silver bells. The carriage I saw outside the window was part froth and part black thorn; as elaborate as a wedding-cake at the top, paired with matched jet-black geldings, but to the side and between the bells on the reins spiked as if to discourage any touching by passers-by.

The widowed Lady DeVir embarked with the aid of her liveried dwarven coachman in a foam of skirts and sleeves. Her boots were dainty and shined within an inch of their lives, spike-heeled and ornamented with brass on the toes; her skirts were a wide waterfall of four layers of white petticoats covered by a dividing outer skirt in black and pale pink, edged by a border of seed pearls that continued above to ornament her leg of mutton sleeves. A corset cinched her already slender waist to a fashionable silhouette, and over her lace collar she wore a ruby cameo brooch at her slim throat. She carefully wiped her feet before forcing herself and her costume through the door. Ornate though her clothing was, she was a woman who outshone it by force of personality; she wore her hair curled in pale ringlets behind her elven ears in defiance of Amn's bigoted attitude toward non-humans and drow in particular, and her dark red eyes rained down an imperious and observant gaze.

"Tea?" Xzar offered with the door shut behind her. "Muffins? The corner stall down the street makes some very good ones."

"Alas, there is little to discuss, necromancer, but still I call upon you at your request." She extended a cold hand for him; on her fingers she wore but a single golden ring, engraved with the sigil of her late husband. "Delryn empowers you to act for him? My terms are twenty thousand. No more and no less."

"Two," Montaron said calmly.

"An insult."

"Three."

"Likewise."

"Four at the utmost, woman."

"Refused."

"Five the limit of Delryn's resources, I assure you, Monty has investigated for truth," Xzar said. "He is not wealthy himself; and—somewhat estranged from his family. Perhaps five as a down payment; then after his marriage a little more... Your request is overly large."

"You would not think so if you knew all the facts." Lady DeVir smiled thinly. "Shall I tell you the evidence that is in my possession? A missing vambrace, very identifiable as the property issued Delryn by the Order, with no other explanation of how it came in such a circumstance."

"Question is whether we believe you, for we're not so gullible as would-be knights," Montaron said.

"I have shown it him. You bluff with no cards." She wore her face as still as if her blue-dark skin were a thick coating of powder and paint.

"I will advise our client to make a full disclosure to his fiancee," Xzar said. "She goes among the poor; a compassionate lady."

"Then the wedding will be cancelled," Viconia said. "Such a shame for the want of so little gold. Weddings ought to be a tradition for expensive presents; and that small oaken case would bring the new de'Arnise lords more marital joy than a harem of trained pleasure slaves."

"A bird in hand," Xzar said. He drummed his fingers on the table in a nervous pattern. "What would it benefit you to harm Delryn when you could recover some expense? Expose him and you will gain nothing."

"Very simple. I have one or two other—clients—of my own where exposure of Delryn would serve as an...incentive. Besides, you know him not, necromancer. A braggart and a fool as most males."

"You are wealthy already," he said.

"Merely comfortable." Viconia DeVir stroked the pearls on the sleeve of her velvet gown.

"How long's it been since ye murdered your husband?" Montaron sneered.

"Which one? Viconia glared down at him. "In the Underdark we dispose of worthless surplus males, it is part of our culture. But my fifth husband...you have no idea how many times I have been accused of it, and yet all the investigators in Amn discovered nothing." She drew a silver-gilded fan from her wide sleeves, tapping the beauty mark on the right of her face. "My husband was born in the dregs of this city, and rose from an urchin to a Baron by strength of will and wit, even for a human. The drow respect those traits."

"We...met, in the graveyard, some time ago," Xzar said.

"You did not try to burn me, and I did not invite you to my wedding." Lady DeVir gave a graceful gesture with her shoulders. "Of no significance, necromancer."

"Then if you have no pity on Delryn..."

"Only that it is tremendously regrettable that the lack of such a small sum of gold should cause him such misery."

"Montaron, seal the doors," Xzar ordered. Already the halfling had slipped behind Lady DeVir, barring her from an exit. But she only stood and laughed.

"You did not think me so foolish as to bring it with me? Pathetic. I was expecting some original strategy from you, necromancer. Or will you or your halfling rummage through my skirts after all, just in case?" she said. Her voice slipped low. "You forget, of course—"

Blindness rose before my eyes, utter darkness as if there was only void and Toril itself no longer lived. Toby barked, and for the moment it was as if that sound was the only to spare my sanity. I clutched his warm body, stopping him from racing at Viconia DeVir.

"—That I am full priestess of Shar," Viconia finished, and then she stood as the sole image in the dark, standing on nothing below the swirl of her petticoats. "Loss and darkness attend me always.

"You," she began. "Shattered and broken and blinded, foolish human. You lost all that you were in a single crossbow bolt that does not let you rest even now. You will be in pain for all that remains of your life. And that is not the worst of the darkness that haunts you. Not by a long way." Her voice echoed as if it was bouncing from the edge of my skull, and in my arms the dog squirmed and growled. "Crippled and sent away from your battlefields...and you wonder: _If not for the excuse of my wound, would my courage have failed long ago?_"

_Darkness and loss and blood, too much blood, the cries from the burning cities and the ravens perched on the eyes of the fallen by your failures to save them. Alone in a small room, bone-deep exhaustion lingering and the long unrested nights turning slowly..._

"You are not the keeper of my conscience," I said. "That is enough."

"And you," Viconia said, and then Xzar became visible in the black void, his green robes blown by a strange wind. "Don't trouble to pretend there is no darkness in you, Zhent. Necromancer."

"I abandoned them," Xzar said, and gradually his voice became clearer and more certain of itself. "A necromancer acts in an offshoot of divination that concerns itself with the truth of the dead and the truth of the past. This becomes the truth of the living. I practice magic, seeking to _know_; I find out the truth and challenge my mind; and in a way it is what I have always wanted. People change. The Lady of Mysteries believes in searching for them."

"Such a disgusting change," Viconia said. "And you, halfling. Likewise a tainted Zhent. You are supposed to be a master assassin, a true talent in fading in the shadows. You must waste such terrible gifts." Montaron was the fourth to stand in the void, his short sword drawn.

"If'n I was as gifted as ye say there, ye wouldn't have said that," he said. "I'd gotten accustomed to the mad mage's face when I turned my coat; and besides there weren't profit when they gave me the job of babysitting him. Ye got anything worth saying?"

Anger grew on Viconia DeVir's face. She stamped her daintily-heeled foot, and a red tide swept along a crack that grew from it—as if she let back light into the void. "There is more in heaven and earth than you know, necromancer; there is more than you can ever know; hidden tides and threads sweep you along in this and you understand none of it." She turned her back, straight as a poplar trunk, and stepped away from empty space.

Light and the everyday contents of existence returned to our rooms behind her exit.

"She's not the only one for parlour tricks," Xzar said, drawing some black powder from a packet in his robes. Before I was able to stop him he threw it into the fire. The flames turned dark, and once more for a moment the room was a black cold place. _Nightmares—in all of us—_

"—I shouldn't have showed off," he said. Slowly it was broad day again with the faint smell of burned muffins on the fire. "It sounds an interesting promise Lady DeVir made. We'll have to unravel that one."

Montaron sheathed his blade. "Give me a few days, Xzar, I've ideas of my own."

—

Unlike Missus Cragmoon's home, Brassus Clem's dwelling had been ransacked. There was the tell-tale stench of lotus, but all drawers had been scraped out and traces of his profession removed.

"Missus Cragmoon confronted Brassus Clem for nearly killing Rose Bouquet."

"—Missus Cragmoon were a wretched interfering old baggage," the woman who had claimed his body said, "and that's all that needs to be said of her."

Her face carried old bruises and gossip did not paint Brassus Clem as a kind man. That the woman had taken black lotus herself showed in the shadows below her eyes and the stains at her cuticles. And she had shown herself desperate for compensation in coin, twitching on her feet as if she suffered the symptoms of withdrawal. On her right hand was a Baldurian-styled tattoo.

"Where was your husband on the fourth?"

"I don't know. Why should I? I never kept him on a leash. He came home to me that night like always."

Xzar had unrolled a selection of a man's clothing hidden and crumpled deep below the bed. He snipped a fragment from a stained shirt and placed the cloth inside a clear potion bottle filled with a translucent purple solution. It promptly turned a violent light blue. He glanced at me, no words needed to betray the finding from his alchemy.

_Human blood; and if the blood matched then we knew the murderer of one._

"And who confiscated his herbs before you reached them?" I said.

The woman's cheeks paled. "My Brassus owed a few coin," she said. "So I gave it all away. Paid the debts."

"You didn't even keep any black lotus for yourself?" I said. It was a powerful addiction; few fears were strong enough to overcome its cruel grip. "It will be better if you learn to live without it. For it is possible..."

"When some interesting problem takes one's attention," Xzar added.

"Caumfre potions help the recovery," I said. "The Ilmatari and the Selunites try to give that aid; the temples down in the south-east of the Bridge..."

"Who came and confiscated it from him?" Xzar said. "His suppliers?"

The pale colour of chalk gripped the woman's face. "I can't...I cannot say. Please leave."

"A description," Xzar pursued.

"They came...by night, when I was not here. They wear plain black masks when they come. I knew it was them, for Brassus told me of his fear of them. They are called the lotus-men around here, but they do not say what they call themselves. I have said more than enough." She took several danters. "Tell them nothing."

"Does the name of Gillon Eldred mean any to you?" Xzar said. The woman shook her head. "How strange. For he was the coach-driver whose carriage meant the end of your husband."

She stuck out her chin. "Knew it was a carriage accident. Didn't care to know more, in case it were _Them_."

"Do you fear for your own life from them? Tell all you know and the danger will be lessened," Xzar said. "Black masks and...How standard. it cannot be the ones I call _Them_, for they tried to kill me once or twice after I left, and stopped doing it with Montaron's encouragement."

"I know nothing! I've told ye nothing! Get out afore I throw ye out. Brassus was loyal to them and ye shouldn't listen to lying whores!" She drew a rough knife as quickly as any other woman of the streets. We left by her encouragement.

—


	4. Montaron's Nuptials

The dwarven workman was tall (for a dwarf) and broad with a thick brown beard, cloaked in dark brown with bronze studs on the edges of his heavy hooded coat, a tarnished badge pinned to his front: an inspector of sewers in the city, considered a very respectable profession among dwarves. Montaron took down his disguise.

"Why, Monty, it's been quite some time since we've seen you," Xzar said. Montaron scowled fiercely.

"Tell me, mad-mage, have I ever come across as the marrying kind?" Montaron flung the false beard into a corner.

"No, indeed, Monty. We are confirmed bachelors."

"I'm engaged."

"Splendid, Montaron!" Xzar clapped his hands and did a little dance. "Do you want me to be bridesmaid?"

"To Lady DeVir's second housemaid."

"I hope you are not abusing the poor woman's affections," I said.

"She'll get over it. I've a rival in the form of a Jansen onion-seller, ye see. The wench seems to think I'm good for variety."

"And what have you discovered there, Monty?" Xzar asked.

"I know every inch of the layout. Aggie—that's my girl—tells me Lady DeVir's got an expensive safe she bought six months ago, the latest in gnome-crafted locks, reinforced into the wall with admantium, and big enough on the inside to walk into."

"Could you pick it, Montaron?" I said; Xzar shook his head although Montaron gave a complacent nod.

"O'course. In my sleep if need be. Her _real_ cache's disguised in the library storage room, her not being stupid and all. She goes out Fourthdays and Aggie leaves the gate open for my callings. Guard dogs've started to know me."

"Then we go on a fourthday, for Delryn's deadline nears," Xzar said. "This is a contest of thought and I aim to fight it out in the astral and larceny planes."

"I think it's ethical to do this as long as we only take what would be used for blackmail," I said. "Though my Order should fire me if they found out—still, I am willing to bear the risk with you, for I believe it should be done. Any victim with a paper or print held in Lady DeVir's store is endangered."

"Fourthday it is," Montaron said. "Ye come prepared to keep quiet and get rid of the magic traps, Xzar—and as for ye, finicky longlimb, keep a watch out."

"And, until then, we have a short trip to the fields of the country to make," Xzar said. "Fresh air, Monty, green grass, new milk and warm-laid eggs..."

"I'm taking Aggie to _Gold: The Dwarven Opera_," Montaron said sadly. "It be high culture."

_—_

It had been simple to find the name of the driver who had killed the man with Missus Cragmoon's bloodstains on his clothing: his carriage had been cleaned before being cheaply sold to another, he himself had been left unmolested on the grounds of accident, and he had left to retire in the country. We had gained address through a letter feigning to announce a legacy from a cousin to him. Gillon Eldred; neither intoxicated at the time nor with the signs of a charm, and now prospering well. The mail caravan twined slowly through the woods and fields outside Athkatla and to the country estates of some of its wealthiest families. Orayson at the wards covered my shift, and outside the spring-green fields unrolled their misty gleam in the rising sun.

"Lord Kyaar Recioa," Xzar said, carrying Montaron's copy of the Amnian _Who's Who_ open on his knees. "B. 1298, ORAGH, ABI, ABGE, et cetera. M. 1329 into the de'Arnises. Smallish—by Amnian noble comparison—properties clustered upon the border of the de'Arnise lands. Relations to many of the noble families—Jysstev, Caan, Delryn..."

I could hardly imagine Anomen Delryn supporting the lotus trade in any capacity, let alone concealing murders connected to it. Nor his fiancee, if half of her reputation among the common Athkatlans was true.

"Complex and dark and many-tentacled is this evil that haunts Athkatla," Xzar said, and lowered his voice when the coach's third passenger—a travelling watch-seller with at least two children—started looking at him oddly. He fiddled with his ear-flapped cap left on the seat. "We have not, by the way," he continued, "considered the point that the lady may not be blackmailing Delryn for the most obvious reason."

"She is an attractive woman and he speaks of her in a most violent manner," I said. "It is not difficult to surmise the circumstances in which he mislaid the Order's property. It would be better for him to make confession to his bride; still, the lady commits the worse crime by blackmail."

"True enough!" Xzar said, and began to whistle an odd tune to himself. It was all sharp half-tones and impossible to take any sense from, and thus I turned to the beauty of the rolling fields.

"Good afternoon, master Eldred," I said, and closed the door behind the three of us. The small farmhouse was well-appointed; we had seen a small cow byre in the back, a prosperous garden in the front with a crop of beans and lettuce. Two thick lavender-bushes by the door gave a strong scent to the air, and golden honeysuckle twined across the back windowsill. He had not lived here near long enough to choose such things himself; had been given it as a present. He was a broad sandy-haired human man, greying, on his hands the familiar calluses of the city driver and his knees stained by dirt as if he genuinely gardened for a living in these days. He looked like any other human, and harmless enough.

_Even murderers should not be murdered_, I reminded myself.

"The ones off Athkatla. What legacy?" Eldred said, gathering himself. He twitched as if nervous; I looked out of the cottage's window and saw nothing.

Aegisfeld's authority applied for nought beyond Athkatla; the noble lords had full power over all upon their fiefdoms, a law that was without doubt open to abuse. "Your carriage killed a man, Gillon Eldred," I said, for the strategy of a sudden attack to set the opponent off-guard. "This house was your blood-price. Lieutenant Aegisfeld of the Guards wishes you returned; confess your superiors, and mercy will be shown you."

"I—I know nothing," he lied. And he started to call out, but a spell from Xzar had silenced the air around us.

"You crafted a ghost," Xzar said, and then in the air floated the death-mask of Brassus Clem, drawn from the exhumation order Aegisfeld had granted us. A dent lay on Clem's skull from the carriage-wheel. Blood stained the grey face.

"Like there's no ghosts around you!" he screamed, and from instinct I looked behind my shoulder for a moment. Nothing was there.

"Who controls the lotus-selling?" I said. "Who ordered him dead?"

Gillon Eldred shook his head. "Notes," he said. "Notes and masks. They all burn! No right—you'll find nothing. Nothing—"

The stain of murder on him shone dark and festering; my sight was as shattering as the wounds that remained in me. Two of us loomed over the carriage-driver, a frightening ghost manifested in the air to threaten him into confession.

_The righteous path is ever unclear..._

"A carriage-driver for Saerk Farrahd; a carriage-driver for Cor Delryn; independent; Lord Recioa," Xzar said. "Which did you really serve? Which gave you this retreat?"

Anomen Delryn's father was a different case entirely to the son.

"You left Delryn years before you killed the ghost on your shoulders," Xzar said. "Names. Descriptions. Trust Athkatla justice above those who kill without mercy."

"When have you been...merciful?" Eldred said, a hand raised to his own throat. He started to cough and I took a step forward.

"Every man for his just deserts; and who should 'scape whipping?" the necromancer quoted. "Mercy...was shown me, at a time I did not expect. Did you know why you killed him—for his own murderous ways attracting attention, I suspect; or did you follow orders?"

"Orders," Eldred got out. "They order the death...of everything in their way. They told me and I...accomplished it."

_To follow orders is no excuse for evil._

"And they ordered me to wait," Eldred said. "For...they knew you were coming."

A torrent of blood fell from his mouth. I took hold of his throat and tried to heal what had been done to him. Amnian sorcery is limited; but this was powerful magic that ripped Eldred apart from the inside.

_—Clutching at another open throat while smoke burst on the battlefield, knowing that the right choice was to leave her to die and fight instead—_

_—Yellow fire bursting out of catapults and black necromantic curses harrowing my comrades, only luck that I lived and they fell to their graves—_

Shouldn't remember. _Let it be painless first; let it be healed; let another not die—_

He lay dead, his eyes closed. The blood remained on my hands. Something knocked heavily on the door.

"Block the door," Xzar said. "The spell won't hold forever—" He hunted among the furnishings, tables and shelves and the crevices of the fireplace. I took the broomstick and wedged it across the doorframe, and braced the bed and the cupboard against the windows. With swift movements Xzar pushed ashes into a vial on his robes—there was no reason to have a fire in this season. The knockings came louder.

"In the name of Lord Recioa, open up! Or we shall be forced to take harsh measures!" Footsteps and clinking armour made at least four of them. They could well be innocents doing their duty; they were also subject only to the lord of their jurisdiction; and we also should be.

"—He's got flour. Anyone would. Cooking oil, too," Xzar muttered. "Time for alchemy."

The walls shuddered. White clouds of flour flew into the air and stayed there. Oil soaked Eldred's corpse.

"—This is going to _hurt_," Xzar complained. He lifted floorboards wide enough for a coffin even as the makeshift barricade started to splinter. A necromancer's gravedigging; a tinderbox; a match; and then a fire directly over a human body.

After the explosion the heat licked at us even where we lay below the flooring. The protection spells helped a little, but the smoke was harsh to breathe. I could hear nothing and fires licked above us. Dirt filled my mouth as if we were buried alive in a true necromancer's grave. The guards fought the fires, footsteps vibrating above. They could notice the nails misplaced, notice where the boards had collapsed around us and fragments of light broke through from above. Boots tramped and the air came close to choking us.

I do not remember having a fear of enclosed spaces, but that came close to crafting one. The necromancer was worse, shaking and forcing himself to be silent by a hand pressed inside his mouth. The footsteps pressed above my head over and over again; we had not killed them. _Be calm. Wait._ There was nought beyond that within my ability. _Fires over Saradush, flame-catapults from the enemy camp, the same smoke and fears—_

It was dark when all was silent and still at last. Our hearing had returned, and they had spoken of finding parts of the man their sorcery had killed. One destroyed corpse can be mistaken for three when nobody present cares to investigate in detail.

_I do pray for the soul to find rest, for all we did the man and his body an ill turn..._

We waited long into the night in case of a patrol roaming the grounds. Then at last we were free to step out into cool air, soot-covered enough to move through the night unseen.

"To Athkatla," Xzar whispered, his throat still seared. "Must—return in time..."


	5. Practical Burglary

_Chapter 5: Practical Burglary_

—

We wore dark grey-brown that blended with the city colours at dusk; quiet old boots; and black cloth masks as a rough disguise for an illegal quest.

"—Monty, d' you think I'd've made a good burglar in another life?" Xzar said. "Walking quietly—nipping through the night like nipping through a graveyard—using close finesse to unpick a lock—"

"Not if ye can't fall silent once in a while, fool," Montaron complained, and switched to the basic hand signals he had taught us. He would clamber over the gates first and soothe the dogs by his accustomed presence; then let us in via the gates. Lady DeVir's mansion was lavish even by Athkatla standards; not so large as the vast Colwyv structure, but the late Zaragosia had hired expensive architects while he was alive. The gates were designed in the shape of iron rosebushes, ornamental and yet painful; the gardens were heavy with the stench of flowers, drawn in regimented patterns that suggested the floral luxuries a symbol of wealth rather than love of the plants. A few trees stood as polished stumps as if they had been cut for the purpose of denying cover to any walking in the grounds and a large pond rested tranquil in the night. A smooth moonlit path was wide enough to bring carriages to the front door. The whole was gabled in a lacy design of white metal, and one or two faint lights shone from the glass-panelled windows.

We remained by the walls; and Montaron took us to the servants' entrance in the back, cunningly concealed behind a large abstract statue. It was unlocked and he easily led the way up a long flight of stone steps. Then the doors before the staircase changed from plain wood to polished, ornamented and marqueted stuffs. Xzar stepped forward and chanted softly at the mage-protections that guarded Lady DeVir's sanctums.

The carpets were thick and plush, and in the gloom it seemed a hundred fragile china ornaments were laid at every step willing to be knocked over in an instant of carelessness. The mage had an infravision spell and seized my hand in the darkness. Something rushed at our legs and I felt a touch of cold scales against my ankles. Xzar raised a brief mage-light, and I saw that of all things the creature was a small alligator: it crossed the hall to fling itself into a wet vase of lilies, a novelty mage-bred pet for nobles. We continued through further passages until we entered a room where the smell of parchment betokened its status as the library. The main door to it was unlocked; the three of us exchanged glances, but continued through the shelves laden with books and scrolls that to my eyes seemed mostly untouched. The safe lay openly on the wall, locked with admantium that reflected faint moonlight in its glisten. The small storage-room was concealed behind heavy velvet curtains to the right of the library, and was warded by spells that took Xzar further time to disable with Montaron's guidance. All was dark and quiet, and the smell of some rich red wine lingered in the air.

It seemed an untidy mess; two planks lay leaning against the wall as if the storage room was only an artefact of some abandoned reconstruction plan. Damaged volumes with cracked spines and ripped pages were open on rough wooden shelves. But Montaron searched efficiently among the clutter so uncharacteristic to the Lady DeVir; he uncovered letter after letter, unreadable in the darkness but clearly correspondence from many different authors rather than formal scrolls. These he laid aside into one pile, including with them one or two small painted portraits; and then at last he came to an oaken box of the right size to hold a vambrace. He opened it; I recognised that the metal object was of the exact shape for the Order's property.

"Those," Xzar whispered, his head bent forth over it also, "are bloodstains it carries."

We stared at each other. "Could be...well, unusual practices, y'know—" Montaron said—"none o' us here being all that innocent, and hearing things about drow..."

There was next to no light, but the silvery finish of the armour was plainly besmirched.

_Delryn is a member of the Order and a Helmite in the standing of his god. We swore to protect his secret; but this must override..._

Then from behind us a golden line crept through the door, and the sounds of movement came from the library. Montaron and I placed eyes to the crack to see the Lady DeVir's shape walking to a red velvet chair and seating herself, as if she waited for someone. Slowly she poured herself wine in a long, sparkling crystal glass, and drank and sat quietly. There was no way out past her, and we could only hope that she needed nothing from her storage-room. Xzar stood guard over the pile of letters and images; it would be for the best if they were destroyed. From the faint flicker of light around the door I saw the odd word of handwritten sentiment, or pleading for silence.

A second door creaked, and the Lady DeVir stood with her back turned to us. "You are nearly half an hour late, jaluk," she said to someone beyond our vision, "I hope that it is worth it. You could not come at any other time?"

A cloaked figure advanced into her library, a dark blue hood covering the face completely.

"No? If your master is a hard master to you—but what am I saying, valet? That exact scandal is your claim to my offer. If his sweet notes to you are as delicious as you say, I shall fix the price at my first offer; come and lay your memories of your master's hardness here..." she taunted. "Shar! Who are you?"

The visitor without a word had raised his hood and released his heavy mantle. He was an odd sight in Amn: a clean-cut, angular face, bedecked by scars in regular pattern upon chin and cheeks, his pierced ears pointed as an elf's and his hair a vivid blue. He wore gaudy chainmail below the blue cloak, and then he drew a pair of short swords that glittered in the light.

"Greetings, my blackbird; please stay still," he uttered coldly; and by the rich overtones of his voice it was clear that more than a simple plea was there. "It is I. An agent of vengeance against you this night."

I could no longer move. The bardic spell had spread unto this corner of the room; Montaron and Xzar were likewise pinned. There was nothing we could yet do.

Lady DeVir laughed, but fear underlay her smooth tone. "What have I done against you, demonkin? Sometimes my clients are regrettably obstinate and—a lady must pay her little bills."

"You caused," he said with a voice that sounded shaped perfectly to some theatrical denouement of a play, "the suicide of the husband of my lover; —my former lover but one, I must admit, and yet the whipping you inflicted upon her sensitive soul deserves a fine revenge, though it take the both of us to pay greetings to oblivion this night."

Still we could not move. I recalled rumour of the Five Flagons bard, the lead player who was a tiefling; a handsome blue-haired man fit for the heroic role alongside the new elven actress.

"And which would be this?" Lady DeVir said, haughty still above her edge of fear. "I see so many. It can be difficult to recall."

"A noble lord, one truly loving toward his wife in a saga of unexpressed passion fit for the ages," the bard said. "Does that ring a familiar song to you, my fair blackbird?"

"I have learned to trust no surfacer to be noble in any sense of the word." Viconia's voice could have frozen ice itself.

"Lord Keldorn Firecam," the bard said, "and his lady wife Maria. How lovely her spun-gold hair, how generous her parched yet flowing spirit; and by her husband's suicide you caused misery to my love, breaking her as a stray flower by the wayside. Does that make you remember now, my blackbird?"

You could not be a knight and not know the name of Lord Firecam. His exploits were legendary, his courage and devotion unparalled; and his death, at a time I was campaigning away from the city, was supposed for an accident of old age and strain upon his body. To know that his wife had betrayed him; that the Sharran had permitted his death...

"I remember indeed," Viconia said, "_he_ tried to have me burned, and yet I set my price well within the means of his noble wife. She would not pay. I honoured my promise. Her letters to you, my bard, were most...sprightly."

"Her ageing hound's great heart gave out in his misery; she deserted me also; and wept in misery, uncomforted even by her children," the bard said, and raised his pair of swords in red and blue. "This: for my oriole!"

To resist restraining magic is a skill learnt by degrees on campaign; I burst through the door and aimed a crossbow bolt to the bard's shoulder. He flew back and was pinned to the opposite wall. At the same instant, a woman's cry came from behind where the bard had stood and two more figures appeared from thin air.

"—There will b-be...there will be no murder, Haer'Dalis!" burst a fair-haired elf, her yellow robes in the style of a mage. "Raelis and I...you cannot kill any like this!"

Her second was a red-haired woman who carried two curling horns upon her forehead; another tiefling, a scaled tail twining from the tight back of her sequinned red gown.

"My sweet dove; yon fiery guanette bird; and a...dark hound unknown..." Haer'Dalis said, stunned, trying to pull himself free.

"We come to spare you from yourself, my moth," Raelis said. "Or rather, the leading lady of my play doth demand and I comply. To our symphony is added yonder strange voice, masked as a highwayman..."

"I am here likewise to prevent any murder from commission," I said. "There are two behind me; keep your hands where I can see them and cast no spells. Bards, beware your speaking." The crossbow is a simple weapon, and I was as good a shot as any in the Order still.

"Then we s-should...we should all leave here somehow," said the elf in yellow. "Haer'Dalis, it is not _right_. No matter what she has done..."

And Viconia DeVir stood from her chair as if she had never been affected by the bard's spell at all. "Such a crowd?" she said. "A wingless bird. Demonspawn. Godservant—Shar gives me the power to tell; and that _must_ be the necromancer and the halfling by your side. Such terrible criminal acts. The city guard would be on my side; my own foolish guards—"

"This sparrow hears; and offers his own life to occupy her—" Haer'Dalis, his right shoulder bleeding, stepped forward once more.

"There's a solution," Xzar said quickly, and began to chant a spell. It was one that the others recognised, for the bards and the elf joined: an enchantment from four voices. At first Viconia DeVir seemed to fight it, but then the charm took hold and she stood still.

"Besides the contents of your storage-room, Viconia, what do you own that is worth blackmail?" I said.

She scowled and spat. "That alone," she said, and Xzar and I acknowledged it for truth. Montaron casually set a fire on the pile of letters he had gathered.

"That is right," the fair-haired elf said, raising her small chin. "She should not blackmail others."

"And let the notes of my oriole be given to ash and the skies beyond," the bard said, a hand clamped on his wound; at last the elf seemed to notice, and went to him to support his right arm.

"Now, Haer, stand still and I'll heal it, you silly man! Or at least I'll numb the pain until we get you away from here, and I'll heal it as soon as Miss Raelis and I are sure you won't do it again," she said.

"Are you involved in the trade of black lotus in any way or shape or form or inner plane?" Xzar asked next. "That is the inclusive or, by the way."

"No..." Viconia began, baring her teeth. "At any rate not directly, vile jaluk."

"Who do you know who is?" I said, while the elf mopped away the blood from Haer'Dalis' cloak and began her spell.

"They have...they have such clever plans, jalil," Viconia said. "They join...they are the Tapestry. Beware the...union I sought to prevent..."

The tiefling called Raelis listened to this almost blankly, though her glance seemed quick and clever.

"Names and faces of this one?" Montaron said, his own crossbow drawn and pointing. Behind him, all Viconia DeVir's collection bar the oaken box was dust and ashes.

"Masks," Viconia said dreamily. "Masks and illusions are carried like scarves. They know that you seek them; they know that you are troublesome; and they will crush your skulls like eggshells and preserve your innards in brine." She could not lie below the strong spell. They were hidden to her, then, as much as to us.

"Where did you come by the vambrace?" I said, not speaking the name.

"You wonder of that now, human knight?" She licked her lips. "You fools put yourselves on such high, such pathetic, pedestals of righteousness; and then you fall deeply. I purchased it from a guard of the old Farrahd estate with no idea of what he held. I performed my neighbourly duty of keeping an inquiring mind. Now you know its true scandalous nature no doubt you shall hide it far less well than I did. I daresay this shall destroy the alliance as well as any other; and I know not if the Tapestry would rather it that way."

The name of Farrahd was indeed sufficient to push pieces to place.

_The Order...and yet Delryn is truly a priest of Helm..._

_My duty is to the law and to the truth._

"And now my guards come," Viconia said; in her firelight the colour of her tongue ran to blood. "I have shortling servants in my kitchen and to my person—" She flashed a contemptuous gaze at Montaron. "I find it difficult to hire those who consider themselves of higher social status. Thus; for my guarding I have..."

The doors burst open, and there stood three golem-like beings. Instead of traditional golems they were slim and tall rather than squat and broad. One was translucent and glittering as if it were carved from a single vast diamond; the second burned with living fire; and as for the third, it was the shadowed black of obsidian. They moved with inhuman speed. The diamond one stamped a single foot on the floor; and the elf and Haer'Dalis were thrown back as if by an earthquake. I felt the floor shake and loosed a bolt into the eyes of the one of flame. It was of no use. I stepped forward to shield the others in any way I could; in the course of my vocation and travels I had learned the Kozakuran art of baritsu, and even with an occasional limp it served. Raelis sung, and a ring of cold blue flames appeared about her; and then her voice expanded to more than one key at the same time. She sung a weirdling song from somewhere far between the planes, guiding her voice to pierce all within hearing; cracks appeared in the diamond golem. Then its obsidian relative struck at her.

"My dove! This sparrow will guard you!" Haer'Dalis stood, leaving the elf behind on the ground. He paused to chant some protection spell across himself, and I tried to hold the obsidian away from Raelis while avoiding the fire golem's blows. Xzar chanted, and threw a dagger that looked as if it was made of water into the golem's eyes. It hissed and steamed loudly.

The bard appeared by my side; I swung the side of my hand into a crack of the diamond golem with sufficient force to widen the gap. Raelis began her melody once more. The noise grew; we would undoubtedly be discovered by servants or guards from the streets.

"It's on your right, Haer!" shrieked the elf; in time he avoided the blows of the obsidian golem, but his twin swords barely dented it. "I...we must escape! N-nobody is to be killed. I am a witch!"

"Are you? What's your idea?" Xzar said, slowing the flame golem with another water-dagger.

I could hear the elf speaking quickly with Montaron; I needed all focus for the fight. The obsidian golem overreached a strike at me; unbalanced, I had only to give a gentle push to bring it down to the floor. But it rose again, while Haer'Dalis' swords had only the slightest effect against the diamond cracks of his bardic partner's song.

"It is done! Come through while I hold the spell," the elf said. From her hands glinted a silver door in the air. Xzar gave a quick nod.

"Lady DeVir: forget this incident," he said to Viconia, moving his hands to charm her. "Consider the stock market in place of blackmail. An accidental fire; invaders who escaped before your golems could find them; a misfiring of magic. Remember nothing of this from the moment I snap my fingers."

"Go," I urged the bards, and they followed their friend easily enough. The three golems converged upon me. The obsidian struck, and sent me flying to the opposite wall with a broken rib. But the others had vanished safely. The elven girl was quick to close it and step through behind me; and then we stumbled through to the back staircase by which our group had arrived. We escaped by the still-open gate, Haer'Dalis flinging behind meat for the dogs.

"I've seen far smoother burglaries." Montaron folded his arms and glared in the safety of an alleyway.

"Haer'Dalis, you silly, _silly_, man. I'll heal you when we are back at the playhouse; the lady who took the golem's blow can be first," the elf said. "Baervan, please listen to my prayer."

Her healing was capable, and I stood with refreshed health. "I'm sorry about Haer, I truly am," she said. "He has...odd ideas. You came to help people, didn't you? S-she...did that dark elf woman cause the death of that knight?"

"Yes; and if the Lady Maria wishes then she will have the power and proofs to bring it before the law," I said. "It should be a better way than private vengeance."

_I believe that; in all honesty I believe that; to ruin a life for the sake of it..._

"Then I will talk to her," the elf said. "I suppose we...loved the same man; that is something in common. And I can tell her that the drow woman's collection has all been burned. My name is Aerie, by the way. We are...from the Five Flagons, the players? Miss Raelis has written _The Sea and the Mirror_."

"My dove is the spirit of Miranda; and I the brave prince Ferdinand," announced Haer'Dalis, striking a careful pose with his swords.

"Not your dove, Haer'Dalis. Not any more," Aerie said, raising her head. "I am a witch, Haer'Dalis, and I have decided that you and I are so different that it should never work. And I am also quite sure you will find someone else soon enough.

"Miss Raelis, I will stay until your play is complete; and then I have much to accomplish in travel elsewhere."

"Then to the planes, my moth?" Raelis Shai said, offering her arm to her fellow tiefling.

"To your flames once again, though it scorch this sparrow's wings," he replied; and the three actors in red and blue and gold turned together to return to their theatre.

"I suppose their...relationships are settled," I said cautiously.

"Farrahd," Xzar repeated, "and de'Arnise. The third force comes together."

"And lookit what we scored free," Montaron said, and waved three tickets to the Five Flagons play.

—


	6. AD's Flaw

_Chapter Six: A.D.'s Flaw_

—

"How charmed do you think she really was?" Xzar said, and did not ask for an answer.

The facts of Saerk Farrahd's death were available to any who cared to view the public archives. An unknown assailant had murdered the man and four of his guards, indiscriminately and brutally; the son, Yusef, and daughter, Surayah, were absent from home visiting an older cousin; and the business had largely fallen to Cor Delryn.

The old mansion was still boarded up, unoccupied; the living Farrahds had returned to their relatives in Calimshan. This time our attempt at burglary was far easier: we rolled up the burlap sacking that covered the once-luxurious room of Saerk's private study, and saw that the stain on the vambrace of the Order was a flawless match to where one of the Farrahd guards was murdered on the floorboards. Bloodstains are ever difficult to erase in full.

"...And the necromantic alchemy traces the blood to an exact match," Xzar said. "I apologise; he is from your Order; but the truth must out. Inspector Aegisfeld will bring the case."

Helm's justice was not beyond mortal justice. "I agree."

—

The tall veiled woman waited on the path to the door. Her clothes were of expensive Amnian fabric though sober browns and dark blues in colour; her veil was a close-stitched dark red that suggested debutante rather than widow and covered her face in full; and her mud-stained boots were oddly practical for one of her apparent background. She wore three rings, two of them over her soft gloves and the third below. At her belt she carried a short sword with an iron-grey hilt where a red gemstone pulsed with faint dweomer; scratches and scrapes on where the blade met scabbard suggested that she was practiced in its use.

"I am—"

"Nalia de'Arnise," Xzar said. "You should not wear your signet ring if you wish to go unrecognised; even the shape of it is distinctive enough, to say nothing of the arcane aura of it."

The lady hid her hands behind her back and tried to look affronted below her veil.

"It's quite fine that you know who I am, of course," she said. "I only wished to stop the neighbours from gossiping."

"Missus Hector's youngest child has the flu; Mister Feyson is usually asleep this time of day; Miss Caryam is busy with her laundry. They're unlikely to be paying attention," Xzar said. "Come in; tell us what you think we ought to do for you."

"I could say my piece as well out here," Nalia de'Arnise said. "It _is_ short."

"I take it that your fiance received the message that we could do no more for him?" I said.

"That you refunded his deposit and betrayed him, indeed," Nalia said. "But please don't tell my knighty-bear that I steam his correspondence. The dear man likes to believe that most things are his idea."

"Does that mean ye—knew all along about the drow?" Montaron said, staring up at her. "Would've saved a lot of time and not putting up with him!"

"I know more of the full story than Ano thinks," Nalia said. "I know his sister was murdered, and I know Cor Delryn laid blame on the Farrahds. At great provocation I know that Anomen...secured his revenge on Saerk, who was by all accounts a drug fiend and an oppressor of the poor. I might not know exactly what Ano did; he can have a terrible temper. He has worked to overcome that."

"More women than you'd think can say that sort of thing," Xzar said.

"Oh, for goodness' sake. I am a mage in my own right; Ano means to be good," Nalia said. "I have chosen to marry him because he is a man who keeps to his word; a man who can't tell a lie without his face giving it away red as a beetroot; a dedicated man; and, well, he does have _very_ impressive muscles. It must be all those push-ups in full armour... Anyway, he is my fiance and I mean to marry him next Firstday. Besides, without him, I won't have a chance to implement all my splendid plans for helping the poor and unfortunate of the city."

"Helping the poor and unfortunate, ye say?" Montaron stepped closer to her.

"You're quite hygiene-challenged. Please move away," Lady de'Arnise said absently. "Yes, I frequently go among the less fortunate characters of the city and help them in charity work. I've aided so many of your kind in the past. There needs to be a more equitable distribution of wealth, don't you think? In fact I've learned many of the standard skills for practical wealth redistribution, which also means that I'd like it very much if your halfling retainer kept his hands away from my pockets. Much better. I have wonderful plans for reform, but although I am of an age to choose my own husband I cannot gain my late father's full property without a man by my side. 'Tis certainly a foolish and regressive custom, but I cannot yet change the laws. Mayhap with a Council seat or a rank within the Cowled Wizards. But that sort of thing can wait for later plans."

She paused as if to regather her thoughts.

"When I am married to my knighty-bear, we will be willing to face whatever comes together," Nalia said. "Ano has my full trust and I think he would stand a chance in a court of law; and he will have the resources of the de'Arnise estate as well. Subject, of course, to my approval, since after all it's only sensible to sign a pre-nuptial contract, don't you think? Very useful to protect one's rights. Really, I'd prefer to ask you to destroy it entirely, to spare him. Will you? You know that he is a priest of Helm." She faced Xzar squarely.

"It's true I have a past of my own," he said. "I was Zhentarim. A lack of power limited me more than ideas of ethics; and I would have done worse without even the excuse of revenge for the ghost of a sister. And yet. _Veritas nos liberaret_; these days that's what I claim to serve..."

"Farrahd's family are farspread to Calimshan now. What would they be hurt or helped? My love's knighthood means to him everything he has ever hoped for. I think I might be more practical than you, though I don't say I don't agree with the principle," Nalia said. "Don't be cruel to him, when he came to you for help."

"Perhaps you could find out in your own time what happened to Saerk Farrahd's guards that night," I said.

"Hmm. I'll take the hint, I suppose," Nalia said. "At least wait until after I have inherited the de'Arnise lands before you do whatever nasty thing you have in mind. Otherwise I might have to marry someone perfectly awful, such as Isaea Roenall, and his family will do their best to control my keep. Charis Roenall is positively dreadful and I don't know in the least why aunty Delcia continues to host them. Still, I suppose nobles must bear the curse of their ancestry and relations."

"We journeyed to Recioa lands of late and found a man murdered by strong necromancy; and in his fire were the ashes of a shadow of a de'Arnise seal," Xzar said. "That much is provable and in the hands of the city guard."

Nalia de'Arnise shook her head. "I have never heard of such a thing! The Recioas have none to do with me and I know no such spells, though _you_ may," she said. "Their land adjoins; they have fallen upon quite hard times; they are distant family connections to Ano as well, I believe, and to some of my Caan relatives, such as my aunt. I can certainly help to stand against those who would frame me for such things."

"I thought as much; for it was too obvious," Xzar said. "Another question, if I may: has Cor Delryn ever involved himself in the lotus trade?"

"It is one of many vile practices that strip the common people of everything they earn by trickery, and I would stamp it out," Nalia said. "Ano's father has...differences of opinion with his son, but Cor himself has had weaknesses in that direction. Since his business resurged after Farrahd's death he scorned it. He scorns the gambling trade too," Nalia added, "for it brought him to his lowest depths along with the wine."

"That does help to bring it together," Xzar said. "Who has threatened your wedding beside the Roenalls and Lady DeVir?"

"Threats cannot cow me; my late father was a warrior before he was a baron," Nalia said. "The Roenalls have made noises, but old Farthy and his family were invited nonetheless; auntie Delcia disapproves of everything; and... Surely I do not need to tell you all this."

"A group named the Tapestry has raised it," I said quickly. "They are of the lotus trade..."

"Never heard of them. Still, I have heard of the account of how you brought down the shapeshifting assassin in the Government District," Nalia said. "There have been...oddities about my wedding planning even besides Cor's lack of cooperation. Unreliable servants; epergnes disappearing; wineglasses vanishing only to turn up later in odd places. I have invited people from _all_ social circumstances, but auntie Delcia does say that some of the lower elements have a troubling attitude. And Charis Roenall kicked up quite a fuss on Althea Corgeig's inviting, but Althea taught me how to dance and it would have been simply rude to leave her out. Nonetheless some of the rumours of the city of late have been...troubling."

"Yes," Xzar said. "There has been a Delryn connection to lotus murders and a blackmailer seeking to prevent your wedding. A serious matter."

"Hmph. I suppose it would not hurt to retain you as servitors on the day," Nalia said. "Ano would not be pleased, but I may as well clear my name before any serious issue arises. We have met well, I think."

"Ye've taken a long time for a short talk," Montaron said. He dashed inside the house, all of a sudden; Nalia scowled and reached for spell components on her belt.

"—What is it?"

"This thief!" he called, and pulled out a small pink-haired halfling by her hair. "What've ye stolen?"

The girl held up the oaken case. "Only Sir Delryn's stuff!" She freed herself with a quick twist and a kick that incapacitated Montaron for the time being. "I'm a better thief than you, Monty Boffins! And you just watch out or I'll be telling your mother that you took advantage of Aggie Cleighman!"

"Blast ye, girl! Ye wouldn't dare."

"Well, ye won't know unless you try!" The halfling girl scuttled behind Nalia's skirts. "Say, your doggie is cute, isn't he? I gave him some nice biscuits and he didn't make a sound—"

Toby is not intended to be a watchdog.

"Young Alora helped me in a certain incursion of trolls to my family estate once," Nalia de'Arnise said. "Very talented. I take it this minor piece of unpleasantness won't affect my hiring of you for event security? Splendid. I'd appreciate it if you dressed appropriately and perhaps washed off that unsightly face-paint. My butler will explain your duties on the day. In all honesty I do wish to help however I can in any matter that affects the less fortunate. Good day."

Spellwork marked her and Alora's teleport from the streets.

"Blasted little hin thief!" Montaron picked himself up with a groan. "A damned sight more trouble 'n she's worth. But..." He gave a slow, dark grin and withdrew a rectangular object from his clothing. "Not being stupid and all, I made sure to have a copy of the box in case of the same bright idea we had of lifting it."

—

Note: 'Knighty-bear' possibly comes from Strange_Girl/Domi. :)


	7. Moira Veritas

_Chapter Seven: Moira Veritas_

—

Though it might have been a favourable day for a wedding, in the darkness before dawn it was impossible to tell. Lord Cor Delryn's mansion stood in the Government District, and despite the estrangement between him and his son was the choice of venue for his prospective daughter-in-law, the Baroness de'Arnise.

The wedding was to be held in the wide front room, the presiding priest of Helm standing on a white marble dais to the left of a gushing fountain and tranquil blue pool. As we passed by as hired servants to become accustomed to the location and fetch and carry the final errands, I saw Xzar pause before one of the urns that rested on a pale shelf by it. It was a simple alabaster vase, gracefully designed; and standing beside it was a fading picture of a young girl in watercolours. Her features were a softened edition of Anomen Delryn's, with the same striking brown eyes above the lines of cheek and chin, soft brown hair floating loosely around her face. It was an amateur's work and showed a child younger than the girl who was murdered: Moira Delryn, and I fancied that I guessed her brother's hand in this memorial of her. The fountain rang on with a never-ending flow.

"Poor kid," Montaron said, slipping his lockpicks into an upper room. "Not sure we should be doing this. It'll hurt."

"Who benefited?" Xzar said as we stepped softly into the room in the dark. "Viconia DeVir. Cor Delryn, financially. Anomen Delryn lost; Saerk Farrahd lost; Nalia de'Arnise lost; and Moira Delryn herself. Enemies of those benefited." Plain white fabric was draped across all the simple furnishings of the room: a bed, a table, a bookshelf. The window was small and sealed, never designed to open. I saw a young girl's room painted a plain white that had grown shabby over long years.

"The story that it was Farrahd seems...unlikely, to me," I said. "Farrahd triumphed over Cor Delryn. The wealthy man does not have the poor man's daughter killed from revenge."

"Psychologically incorrect, and an outcome the rich man cannot have wanted," Xzar said. "I agree. It was some form of necromantic magic once in here," he added, casting quietly. "Two deaths. Quite close to the spell on Eldred. The maid and the young woman, they say. Mage's talent can run in families."

Moira Delryn had no jewellery on her bureau but a plain copper locket; no theft was reported on the night, though it seemed she had owned little to steal. She'd letters, mostly from her brother in the fields and one from an aunt Caan offering her advice on sewing. This was a violation of her past, and Montaron left everything where it had been with a curse. Xzar turned back from where he'd slithered under the bed, face covered with grey fluff, and brought up an old, dusty book.

Inside were crudely-written runes instead of the common tongue. This was Xzar's to read. "Cantrips, after the first fundamentals of magic," he said. "Moira Delryn mastered a sewing cantrip—I know that one; a dusting cantrip; a perfuming cantrip. Then she started advancing herself to further magics. She spent twenty pages on something that tries to be a detoxification spell, purifying others' inebriation and impairment..."

_Her drunken father._

"...But she never succeeded." Xzar turned to blank, empty pages. "She dated her work. The last is a tenday before her death." He closed the book. "Magery; an unusual pasttime for an Amnian noblewoman."

_Much like Nalia de'Arnise._ They had shared a Caan relative and a care for Delryn.

"If her ghost is anywhere, it's by her brother's side," Xzar said. "Leave everything the way it was. We know all we need."

—

As daylight flowed through the Delryn home I found myself kept busy between pantry and tables, setting napkins in their hawk-like folded shape between place settings. Many servants had been hired for the day only, and the three of us went unrecognised; Xzar's markings concealed by a spell, and Montaron acted as a groom with other halflings in the stables. A cook told me of his memories of Moira Delryn and Elodie her maid, but there was little time for conversation. Nalia superintended all activity in person, a thick black cloak covering her gown and a pale underlayer of makeup covering her face in bleak white, commanding and organising every aspect with terrible efficiency. Her own lady's maid went up to her and whispered something in her ear, and her dead-pale face took on a fierce scowl.

"The wine glasses!" she shouted. "Has anyone seen the wine glasses? Someone has taken all the glasses!"

In no cupboard or corner were they to be found; and little enough time left. Nalia grabbed my shoulder as fiercely as if she wore a spiked gauntlet, hurrying past quick as if she'd cast a hasting on herself. Perhaps she had.

"You solve problems!" she hissed in my ear. "Where are my glasses? I should be the laughingstock of all society to serve no drink to my guests!"

"Not usually of this kind, my lady," I was obliged to admit.

"Fear not," Xzar added from behind; and beside him, Montaron held up a bag of holding. Nalia leaped upon it and withdrew a long-stemmed glass of the sort found in Athkatla's better class of glassblowers. She held it up to the light.

"They have the wrong mark—these aren't mine, though they are similar, and would suffice for the theme of my place-settings," she said, bewildered. "But how many do you have there? How did you come by these?"

"Deductive reasoning," Xzar said, and tapped his head.

"Ordered 'em three days ago, the right number ye said ye were inviting," Montaron said. "We'll be adding the price to the fee, o' course."

"No matter that. You've saved my wedding," Nalia said, "it seems you know what you're doing after all. Give them immediately to the butler! Florilinda! Where did you put the wreaths?"

Twelfth hour, and at last it seemed all fell into place. I straightened above an emptied crate of beaded party favours and longed for a moment to catch my breath. Nalia had retired with her bridesmaids to dress; but already a few early arrivals had come.

Then from behind me a gauntleted hand grabbed my upper arm. I stopped myself from a counterattack when I recognised Anomen Delryn, wearing his ceremonial armour and the gauntlet of Helm's symbol upon his neck. The anger that blazed in his face was none like the image of his sister.

"You! You are that necromancer's colleague. The one who claims to serve the Order," he said. "Get out before I throw you out. How dare you trespass here?"

"Nalia hired us," I replied quickly, "for fear of some attack on the wedding."

_And we fear the wrong men died for Moira's death._

"Hmph! My lady Nalia has her maidenly fears and in her sweet-natured innocence can show occasional absences of judgement and taste," Delryn said, betraying a certain lack of insight into his bride's character. He dropped my arm, pushing me back. "I was knighted. You work a few hours in the lowest healing wards when you see fit. And you think you have the power to ruin me. You gave your solemn word not to look at it and to destroy it. Oathbreaker." He folded his arms and stared fixedly at me with bright brown eyes.

"Murder overrides oaths," I said. "Delryn, you have Helm still and you have your wife. Pray and take her advice."

"I am a knight of the Order."

"A priest," I said. "Whereas I know what would have happened to me if I had ever... No. I'm sorry; I mean no disrespect. A priest is a noble calling. But you must know that by my own I can't conceal such a thing." I should not become as cruel as Viconia DeVir. One weighs the justice of the dead against the compassion of the living, and prays that the end-balance will not hold more cold stones than wheat.

"You are on no active duty. Nor I suspect will ever be," Delryn said. "You're a cripple pretending to have influence where you have no business whatsoever."

"No business but a purpose. No influence but the truth. I—you lost your sister, Delryn. I can understand that pained you. You were in a rage," I said. The young girl's portrait rose before my eyes, her features pleading for her brother. Delryn listened and replied.

"I was. Black and red rose before my eyes and I knew that fiend was responsible for the murder of an innocent girl."

"How did you know it, Delryn?" I asked in the same rhythm as he spoke.

"My father, of course. He told me," Delryn said. "Moira and the maid were murdered defenceless. He, of course, could have done nothing, drunkard that he was."

Who benefited, Xzar asked; and the dread suspicion rose in my mind. "Was he in the house at the time, then?"

For Cor Delryn gained; and Cor Delryn would have cremated her in place of taking her to some temple...

"Of course not. He spent the night drinking with his old so-called friends Hasonal and Satrun, who did nothing but entice him to spend further gold he had no ability to repay," Delryn said. "Before I knew of her murder she was in her urn. I was...over hasty; I prayed to Helm to gain restitution; but Farrahd himself was an evil man. I would say worse than even a Zhent!"

_And the names of Saerk Farrahd's guards that night were Ronan Willowson, Eadred Armman, Ahjad Fariyan, and Nur Mefiq; and one of them belonged to the Helmite temple himself._

With my next questions I tried to follow lines of thought I believed Xzar had pursued. "Farrahd dealt in lotus. Was he associated with the Tapestry?"

But I had lost him. Anomen Delryn started forward with a raised fist. "I will not submit to this ridiculous interrogation! You and your confederates seek to ruin me. I will not strike you, but expect no more courtesy from me than to a street harlot." He lowered his arm, shaking. "Get out of my sight. Nothing is going to ruin this day. Nalia—Nalia, where are you—?"

He stumbled out as if to seek his bride at last.

—


	8. Many Tentacled Evil That Haunts Athkatla

_Chapter Eight: The Many-Tentacled Evil That Haunts Athkatla_

_—_

Athkatla's peacock-clad nobles were filed in the hall, heavily pacing Cor Delryn's mansion. In such a crowd it was difficult to narrow down to those who might cause trouble, amidst so many and in such confusion. I stood a comfortable distance from them instead of joining the crowd cheek to jowl. There were fewer faces I could recognise from the Order than I might have expected; but Delryn was not known for his popularity there. The Lady Irlana and her gnomish husband Cyrando lingered over the elaborate pyramid of goats' cheese and Calishite olive canapes, feeding each other while he stood on a stool. It took me a long moment to recognise Delryn's father as the old man in black at the end of the hall, sparing greetings to few of his guests; but the gaunt features matched his son, though worn with ill-use. A sober silver chain was laid over his doublet and his dress was close to mourning. A tall old woman standing by him must be Nalia's aunt; above a high forehead and tightly coiffed bun she wore a hennin cap long and sharp enough to place anyone's eye out, and a dark green dress heavy with grey embroidery and fortified by several stiff petticoats. The Helmite priest to perform the ceremony stood in front of the gathering, armoured in bright silver and bare-headed and open-faced.

"I must have made some mistakes when I spoke with Delryn," I said to Xzar. It struck me again how ordinary he looked in transmuted disguise; a fair-haired human man, tanned and green-eyed and in a servitor's plain homespun. "He...resents us; of course he does; he gave no information on what Viconia called the Tapestry..."

I told him Delryn's words, and he shrugged. "You've done well for that much, in fact. Everything matches. It begins. Say," he added, "have you got anything interesting in that hip flask of yours?"

"Water," I said firmly.

"It won't do." Xzar waved a long forefinger and brought out a silver flask of his own. "I stole this from Monty. Plain red wine, most likely from the Seven Vales taproom, vintage not notable and bouquet nothing to write home about. If I ever remembered to write home to my mother. But it'll serve. You always need a little something fortifying at weddings.

"There's one more thing I'd like it if you could do—speak to fashionably late Isaea Roenall and family through that door. Collide with him, or somesuch. They say he's something of a dissolute womaniser, but I don't think that'll be a problem for you."

And then Xzar was quickly gone, searching for some other aspect of this adventure. Necromancers do not typically become necromancers out of their social skills.

Isaea Roenall was a tall, stringy man, walking with his large-built father and his richly dressed mother in a gown not unlike Lady DeVir's tastes. Farthington and Charis Roenall, I remembered; the family had wished Nalia to wed their son. Isaea simply pushed me aside, speaking briefly of careless servants, and went to his family's place in the Delryn hall. Their presence felt vaguely unsettling, but no more than that; and if Xzar had meant me to seek concealed weapons or traces of spell components I detected nothing of that nature. I retreated from the path of the last guests to come.

Silvery bells rung out in uninterrupted harmony, and by the time the introduction to their song was done the guests to the wedding had taken their seats. Then Anomen Delryn stepped forward in his full plate, well-polished, glancing neither to right nor left as he marched through the throng of guests. For his witness a boy with the look of a younger squire stood by his side, walking quickly to catch up to Delryn's longer strides. Anomen paced to the priest, gazing forward as if he served on guard duty. He waited; the bells sung high. And then he turned his head as if he could not help but look back.

Nalia de'Arnise appeared in the flowered arch set in the doorway, fully dressed and uncloaked, a bouquet of alocasia and dahlias brightening before her. She wore the de'Arnise colours of burgundy and sage-green for her gown, a translucent lace veil rippling before her forehead, wide skirts sweeping along the floor and a train borne by four bridesmaids in frothy pink, one of whom was the halfling Alora. Below the veil Nalia's complexion was turned to a pale rose, her eyes sparkling bright and her lips carmine red. Lord Cor Delryn was stiff-faced as his son's bride moved along the blue carpet laid for an aisle, and her aunt raised a dry handkerchief to her face. Alora poked her tongue quickly out at another halfling among the guests, laughing; and Nalia's eyes were fixed on the groom waiting for her.

The priest began the words of the Helmite wedding ceremony. Faith, vigilance, and watching over one's spouse and guarding by their side always, for they in turn had guard over your heart.

There were too many people here. As if in a mirage, I saw their images flicker like smoke, like rising steam across the gathering. Athkatlan nobility; not all were saintly, not all senses of corruption should be met with an immediate indiscriminate strike. As if I were in battle once more my head ached with shattering visions of those I faced. I stood back in the dark corner above the gathering, fortunately ignored.

"With my shield, I form a chevron to shelter thee." Delryn used the Order's sigil and the Eye of Helm in place of any family insignia. It was said he'd be the one to change his maiden name, for the house of de'Arnise was above Delryn. Sunlight from the ceiling struck the metal as if the timing had been perfectly planned for the sun at that angle. It was blinding light; the guests moved their heads to stare in a soft susurrus.

Cloaks rustled. Chairs creaked. People watched a wedding, and all I could think of was the last I had been amidst so many was in the wars. I'd hoped to be stronger than that. I opened Xzar's flask and took a mouthful of wine to steady the nerves. The swaying and mirages grew slightly less.

"With this knot, I craft my bond for life to thee." The gauntleted knight's hand and Nalia's slim hand in a fingerless glove joined together, and a woven rope bound their wrists in a true love's knot. The priest pronounced the words of a prayer of blessing over their joined hands.

No, it was stronger now. There was a splitting migraine in my head as if I stood on the plains and waited for the army of monsters to come, their evil intent blinding and vicious. The guests leaned forward to watch in unison. Waiters lined up ready for the next part of the ceremony. I'd not drunk enough to be overcome by it; another sip stopped my hands from shaking. This must pass.

"And with this cup, I pledge our sharing in all that shall pass."

A glass, red wine poured like blood. And the same for the guests to echo the exchange of a toast between the couple upon the dais. The waiters moved quickly. They'd be the glasses Montaron had brought. People raised cups to their lips. There was smoke in the hall, as if a fire had broken out. But there couldn't be. I saw faces blurring in tides of pink and brown against each other, melting into all sorts of shapes in the steam. Doppelgangers melted. Ordinary-looking folk or friends turned into things more dangerous.

And then I saw that I was not mistaken after all. In the crowd disguises fell away: they were mind flayers, terrible monsters. Tall blue creatures swung their tentacles at the wedding guests in their path. People scattered quickly, and on the ground Xzar had already begun to cast a spell.

"In—an organised fashion," I said, and found that in this danger I could still speak. Children and elderly guests crushed underfoot, fleeing this scene however they could— "This way." Evacuate the civilians; always the first step, save as many innocents as you could below fire and terror—

Anomen Delryn was already in the forefront of the fight. His ceremonial mace crushed the head of an illithid who sought to attack him, though the tentacles left a burn across his face. I helped an old man to his feet; the civilians flowed out, and Lady Irlana drew a table-knife and used it to cut a flailing tentacle from a young boy's face. Nalia de'Arnise chanted a spell at the top of her voice.

_Thralls._

The voice in our heads drove some to their knees. I pulled up a middle-aged woman and had her continue to leave. The illithids converged on Delryn.

_Obey us!_

No. We had a choice. Nalia finished her spell, and I saw heads of the illithids explode with white fire, especially those by her groom. Some collapsed then and there; others lived. Little Alora had drawn a long dagger from the folds of her dress and helped Montaron to bring one of the creatures down.

"Calmly and—appropriately, leave in a file!" Nalia's voice said, made magically louder. "This was...unplanned, but we are fighting it! Listen to my voice and walk out without hurting each other!"

It must have been an enchantment spell; she did that far better than I could. I engaged an illithid standing over one of the last to leave, Cor Delryn—hastening along a young part-elven girl with a bleeding knee. Xzar was casting in the centre of it all, though I'd not seen any apparent effects from him.

"I told you it was a many-tentacled evil, didn't I?" he said.

I prevented an illithid from reaching him with a hold on the neck followed by a sword to the chest.

"Oddly enough, I assumed you spoke metaphorically."

"Well, I did, at the time."

An illithid raised its arms as if it tried to cast a spell to flee. I grasped a dagger from Xzar's belt and threw it at the creature's head. While I have always felt strongly that target practice ought to be an outdoor occupation, the ability to adapt to circumstances is ever important.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Xzar said. "I cast an anchoring spell the moment they revealed themselves. So they won't escape."

Another illithid threw a selection of small brown spheres on the ground and waved its tentacles over them. In moments they turned to full-grown umar hulks tearing up the Delryn estate.

"I wouldn't be sure that was the most productive use of your time." I caught the attacks of another illithid on the sword I had carried in. Lady Irlana shielded her husband from the attacks of a mind flayer, and he cast a spell with the use of his voice.

"Well," he said, as Nalia de'Arnise sealed the doors behind her and determinedly threw a fireball atop the umber hulks, "At least we don't think they'll escape?"

The fire—nigh infernal in its glowing blaze—slew some of the creatures and made others rage. I redirected the struggles of a large, half-burned umber hulk and opened the soft midsection. The viscera and the blood spilled across the floor I'd helped that morning to polish, joining Nalia's deep burn marks in Cor Delryn's hall.

"_Did you _know _there were illithids hidden among my guests, necromancer?_" Nalia's still-booming voice shouted. Anomen Delryn had cast a spell on himself, and moved like a juggernaut. The man knew how to fight, it was plain. The officiating priest wielded a hammer beside him, pausing to chant a healing spell across Cyrando. Nalia drew a glowing staff from thin air and walked into the melee.

"They coated your original wine glasses with an alchemical formula that increases sensitivity to psychic attacks. So I had Monty steal them." A narrow jet of flame sped from Xzar's hands to a mind flayer advancing on him. "The glass instead of the wine's one of the classic poisoning tricks, so I suspected it when you mentioned earlier problems with the glasses. As for the epergnes, nobody likes epergnes. But I thought I might not be able to pick the invaders out of the crowd, so I hoped they wouldn't know the change between old and new. Then I couldn't, and then they didn't."

Nalia fought with quarterstaff techniques I recognised from the Order. A mindflayer ripped through her wedding dress, but she brought the end of her staff to its face the moment before Delryn reached her. The magery burned it, and then Delryn's mace crushed its torso.

"That was _my wedding_, you fiends!" Nalia de'Arnise cried out, and flung an acid arrow in the face of one of the two that remained.

"—Is taking it alive a possibility?" Xzar said. He took a drain of the illithid's energy from a safe distance. Nalia de'Arnise's next spell felled it. Irlana and Cyrando and Delryn surrounded the last, which gestured frantically in the air with arms and tentacles.

"_We were called...and betrayed...the Stronger..._" Its psychic voice echoed within our skulls.

"Surrender, foul creature!" Delryn demanded. It brought a blue-tinged arm from robe to mouth; before any could stop it, the creature convulsed and collapsed in death-throes. "It dies. We cannot ask of it..."

Nalia shook her head. "That's all right, darling. It's obvious, isn't it? There was but one party interested in preventing our marriage, and with a little help we've managed to foil them quite comfortably. Just you see who's first to come in and try to take advantage of it, sweetheart. In fact, you can wait behind that pillar over there."

"Nalia!" Isaea Roenall said, returning—and yet he wore the uniform of a guard, and carried a sword. "Nalia, my dear, you must come with me to save yourself from this dreadful scene. Surely you need a protector after the tragic death of your—"

She raised a small rod of iron in her hands, and in a single word of power froze Roenall entirely in place.

"This was your work, Isaea, and the only proof I need is that I saw your shape melt and change into an illithid. And if you deny it I'll incinerate you on the spot, you—you sorry excuse for a slime mold dingleberry born from a kobold's rear end! You employed them to take out my knighty-bear!"

"...Or you could look at his dilated pupils and the faint peppermint scent," Xzar said. "He _has_ taken a potion to shield against mind attacks and in that bulge by his belt—very amusing, Montaron—would no doubt have a few more vials. Odd that any with no foreknowledge should possess those. Unfortunately, I think Isaea Roenall is merely a pawn in another's hands..."

"—Oh, never mind conspiracy theories," Nalia de'Arnise said vaguely. She moved her hand sharply forward with fingers splayed; Isaea's body fell backward, and four metallic staples affixed his limbs to the wall.

"Don't go too far, my lady," I said.

"Don't worry, I'm only imprisoning him until the guards come and claim him," Nalia said, and delicately blew a small film of smoke away from her forefingers. "Come back now, Ano knighty-bear. I just wanted to make sure that Isaea started his slime on me under the impression that his minions had murdered you."

"Nalia," he said, armour dented and face blackened, staring at his bride as if he'd never seen her before, "your...your magic, my lady. It's far more powerful than I knew. Strong hidden magical gifts..."

The tatters of her wedding dress flowed behind her like the petals of a broken flower as she walked toward him. A ring of magefire crackled around her body in blinding, painful light that showed her power. "And our country's attitude toward magic is less than pleasing, I know. I'm powerful enough now to rid my keep of trolls in a few minutes' time single-handedly, and I have so many plans to use it to help the common people and rebuild the very fabric of Amnian society from the ground up. Whether elements of Amnian society like that scum Isaea like it or not. Are you with me?"

"I know some common people who ain't so keen on being rebuilt from their grounds up," Montaron said softly.

"Be quiet, Monty."

"I love you, Nalia. I know this of you now, and I love you," Anomen said, and joined her hands in his.

"And I know the worst of you too, Anomen Delryn," she confessed. "I've known about Viconia DeVir all along, and I forgive you everything and I love you. They might tell you more about that later, but I'll be with you all the way through it. Would you care to marry me?"

"Always," he said. And they stood together in the rubble of Cor Delryn's hall, and Anomen recovered the frayed unbroken cord used to bind their hands together. The priest of Helm stood before them, carrying holy water replaced by a portion of Isaea Roenall's potion; and behind them Alora carried a tattered, dusty bouquet picked up from the floor that had become mixed with mindflayer tentacles.

"...And by the authority vested in me by Helm I pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride."

Nalia's long thigh and knee made their way out of the remains of her dress, and in well-dented armour Anomen gathered her up and did not let her go. Xzar's hand touched my wrist.

"Time we should go," he said. "They know the worst of each other, and come together in spite of that—or because of it. What else is true love?"

—


	9. Mystery's Coda

_Chapter 9: Mystery's Coda_

—

"Saerk Farrahd was innocent of Moira Delryn's death," I said. The mood of the wedding reception could best be described as subdued, despite the violet-flowered cake in eight tiers and strong lemon-flavoured tea. "The truth, surely... And Roenall, he couldn't have done it; it was before Nalia's engagement..."

"Yes," Xzar said, examining a scone with strawberry jam and cream on its back that formed the shape of a butterfly. "That's the problem with the truth. Nobody believes you when you say it. You might as well be mad. Could I help you with some tea, Lady Delcia? I observe you take it white with one sugar and extra lemon."

The old woman sitting by herself was Nalia's aunt, still crackling with a stiff-backed formality and with scarce a hair out of place despite the attack. According to Nalia she had been one of those to disapprove of the wedding, but she sat down and contrived to keep herself well supplied with refreshments.

"My proper title," she said. "Some young fools have been addressing me as Lady Caan. At last someone with a proper sense of the rightness of place. Be quick about it, young man. And don't gobble down that ham sandwich where I can see it, peasant." The deeply set black eyes in the wrinkled face flickered across me with more force to them than the most dark-hearted of demiliches giving cold stares from unknown crypts, and I took a step back.

"A pleasure to help you, my lady!" Xzar beamed, which with his tattoos returned to his face was perhaps broader a grin than he intended. "Not too hot or too cold? Excellent. You enjoy fine art, don't you, Lady Delcia?"

She raised quill-thin eyebrows, jet black despite her red-brown wig of hair. "I do not discuss my hobbies with the lower class."

"But Monty's seen it," Xzar continued. "In your front room. There's a picture painted by Jean-Baptiste Arabellandry, _Young Girl With Baby Musk-Ox Wearing A Silly Scarf In Springtime_, or something along those lines. The artist sells for above fifty thousand danters. And yet your income is supposed a mere seven hundred a year, my lady."

Lady Delcia's lips thinned still further, but she said nothing. Her clothing was correct for a woman of her rank and wealth; her boots only scuffed slightly, as they should be after the events of the day; her jewellery subtle and relatively plain. I could detect nothing untoward about her, and perhaps that was the strange thing in itself.

"Tell me, have you had any burglaries within the past three days? Nothing missing?" Xzar said. "Call it asking professionally; sometimes my colleagues and I do take on a case of that sort of thing."

"No, indeed, young man." Lady Delcia laid her china teacup in her saucer with a final sort of soft clink. "I should notice if liberties were taken with my possessions."

"That's all right then," Xzar said, waving the butterfly scone through the air. "One of my colleagues prefers it when we have scruples this way, and besides I thought it might save Monty's life. You're related to a lot of the other noble families, aren't you?"

"Naturally," Lady Delcia said steadily. "Please explain why you're harassing me like this, peasant."

"It was like a...triangle," Xzar said, cream from the scone on his chin. "If this cream puff here is one corner and the orange almond tartlet is another, and the mint macaroon—those are _very_ good—is the third; and in another triangle the small frilled chicken sandwich with the crusts cut off is the first and the passionfruit gateau is the second—then you watch where they cut over each other. Triangulation, all according to standard geometrical principles. You agree?"

"Please, I was raised as a lady. Higher mathematics is an inappropriate subject for proper young girls." Lady Delcia smiled as if he amused her; her hands were neatly folded across each other. At the top of her purse a fragment of embroiderer's linen hung slightly out, a fernlike shape sewn upon it where each new layer of leaves represented a perfectly scaled version of the first, down to a size impossible to see without a gnome's glass.

"Yet that's a beautiful fractal you've sewn there," Xzar said. "It takes rather a lot of cleverness to get that sort of principle exactly right. Once I read a book about asteroids and their theoretical dynamics, the mathematics splendid and perfect and the pinpricks under every forty-fifth word such a paen of inspired melody to the rabbits, and perhaps it was that in the first place that gave me the urge to discover the truth of mysteries. _The Dynamics of an Asteroid_, that was it."

"You're a wizard; I'm sure you read any number of books, but I am not an institution for the discussion of them," Lady Delcia said calmly.

"Anyway, I was looking for connections to Recioa; to de'Arnise; to Roenall; and to Delryn, someone who would have known where Cor Delryn would blame his daughter's death. Someone who overlapped. Someone who is related to almost of all the Athkatlan noble families. Caan was where the points crossed over."

"Do you mean some peasant-like insult of inbreeding, young man? I'd expected you to have an original mind."

"No." Xzar laid down the cream puff on the tablecloth. "What clinched it was Moira Delryn's talents, really. You were her aunt as well as Nalia's."

"Her cousin, in fact; aunt only as informal courtesy. The poor girl. I sought to give her and her unfortunate father occasional advice." Lady Delcia drew an embroidered handkerchief as if it were a weapon.

"She and her maid—a dressmaker's daughter named Elodie, by the way—were both killed, so that did suggest it was someone who didn't know her family too well. They could have found a time when she was alone, after all. So I suspect the ostensible reason Moira Delryn died was for her father's gambling debts. He owed money; the leader of a certain criminal organisation chose not to lift a hand to prevent her murder; and then, at a comfortable arms'-length, a chain of events was set off that would have only been predictable to one who was close to her family," Xzar said. A sharp tone crept into his voice. "I think you know that one well, my lady.

"Saerk Farrahd dealt in lotus; Cor Delryn would blame him for the death and send his son Anomen for revenge; Farrahd's empire would crumble; and because Cor would only have an interest in the other portions of it—another organisation could then triumph over Farrahd for good. The coachman was another clue; from Farrahd to Delryn and then to the third party who employed him in the sort of criminal activities to which he was accustomed," Xzar said. "And the Tapestry reigns over the criminal underworld."

"A fairy story, I'm afraid, my dear young man," Lady Delcia said cordially. "It would be tremendously unladylike to take an interest in such things."

"And made use of the names and sigils of other noble estates to muddy the waters and select retirement homes for paid assassins," Xzar said. "I wonder if the specific character who slew Moira Delryn and the young lady attending her lives peaceably on? Perhaps even a de'Arnise farm this time. Magery runs in families, after all.

"And then with your niece's wedding you knew you should suffer a lack of control. Viconia DeVir failed; your acquaintance Charis Roenall and her son failed. All still a comfortable distance away. One of the Tapestry's pawns seems to want her freedom from you and gave us warning from the start, but I'll leave you to wonder which one. Or if I'm lying. But the new Baron de'Arnise is now safely wed."

"The de'Arnise estate has suffered much from trolls and other reversals," Lady Delcia said, and this time her sunken eyes were black marbles in her reptilian-like face. "Isn't there a mistake in your false story that one should have a particular desire to gain it?"

"Forgive me," Xzar said, and dipped a pine-nut bryndon in his own cup of tea. "I shouldn't have assumed you play in any other fashion than to win. Nalia was powerful enough to win the day; a loose force of illithids in the city may evolve into a separate power if they gain victories and subvert the populace, whereas a shattered force of illithids seeking a patron to save themselves would be useful tools... If, that is, the attackers had not been prevented from escaping." The bryndon fell apart in the liquid, and he shifted his attention to picking out its soggy pieces one by one. "Why do they make these little cakes to fall apart as easily as kobold spleens?"

"Or if the attackers had any reserve forces," I blurted out, which brought both pairs of eyes to turn to me, Lady Delcia's blank dark stare and the piercing green gaze of my friend.

"By the military stance, the slight limp, the foreign buttons mending your shirt and the tinge to your accent I'd wonder if you are a veteran of the Tethyrian wars, young person," Lady Delcia said. "Or rather, my niece Nalia does like to gossip about the miscellaneous vermin and peasants she attempts to donate employment charity toward. As you know, she would never stoop to believe low gossip in return upon her family." She stood, arranging her rounded shoulders below her thick, dusty shawl. "Do pass my regards to her," she said. "A pearl to you, common ore." She walked with dignity toward the door.

"Sooner or later we'll play another game, you and I," Xzar said. "And I think I'd enjoy it, if..."

_And the face of Moira Delryn rose in my mind; and the name of Elodie her maid, who had once loved to dance._

"If not for what will come during its storms."

But Lady Delcia gave no flicker of regret or guilt, and we stood powerless to stop her from the door.

"Not even magery can tell that, young man. Butler, summon my carriage."

Montaron caught us up; I saw at least two jellied applecakes in the pockets of his coat, and a stray dahlia from Alora's bouquet stuck to the back of his neck.

"And so the game begins once more." Xzar drank from the teacup. "If we leave within the next hour and catch a hackney, we'll arrive at the Five Flagons in time for the play tonight."

—

_the end—for now?_

—


End file.
